http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj Adventures in the south of France Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:27:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en On our last full day in Paris in early June we decided to hop a bus down to la rive gauche (“the left bank”) to visit the relatively new Musee du quai Branly.  Located in a modernistic building on the Seine hard by la Tour Eiffel, the museum was inaugurated ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/09/08/a-visit-to-quai-branly/ We’re not morbid people; really, we aren’t. Visiting a Parisian cemetery is like walking around in a beautiful park, only with tombstones. The main inner-city graveyards are all lined with trees and flowers and have substantial collections of art works by famous sculptors. When we took a tour of le ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/08/15/46/ After just twenty-four hours in Paris, I couldn’t wait to report on what went on. Last fall I’d ready an interesting book written by an Australian journalist who married a Frenchman and eventually moved to le premier arrondissement in Paris. In Almost French, Sarah Turnbull lovingly describes la ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/07/27/a-day-in-paris/ Our stay in the Vaucluse was just great: we finished all of the research that we’d planned on doing and we took all of the excursions, big and small, that we wanted. But with our time drawing to a close, we had lots of last minute details to take ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/07/21/celebrating-the-vaucluse/ Since we still had the car on a Monday in May, we decided to go see another of the big towns of the Vaucluse: Orange. The area has undergone tremendous transformations and hardships over the centuries. Originally settled by the Gauls, the Romans established a colony there around ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/07/13/a-visit-to-orange/ On a Saturday in mid-May the "weather gods” were with us as we left Port-Fréjus heading east to see more of la Côte d’Azur and making our way to Cannes. The drive along the cliff road, la Corniche de l’Esterel, afforded stunning views of the red Esterel Mountains ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/07/02/a-beautiful-day-on-the-riviera/ Since our stay in France is drawing to a close, we wanted to visit la Côte d’Azur once more especially now that the weather has warmed up. Last Wednesday we took off for the town of Port-Fréjus which, with Fréjus and the neighboring city of Saint-Raphaël, make up a ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/06/23/exploring-le-var/ Time and the French Paradox Since the early 1990s there has been a lot of talk about the so-called “French Paradox," a term coined by scientist Serge Renaud in Bordeaux. What is paradoxical is that the average French person consumes much more butter, cheese, cream, and pork than an American, ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/06/20/time-and-the-french-paradox/ In these times of la crise financière, I thought it might be fun to dream about how to enjoy France if money was no issue. So, here is my partial “wish list” that you are welcome to pick and choose from, as desired. First of all, for a ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/06/14/quelle-belle-vie/ Since we had spent a year in France’s third-largest city at the beginning of the 1990s with our two sons, we always feel a special connection with Lyon and try to get back for a visit every once in awhile. Part of our itinerary necessarily includes a walk past ... http://blogs.sage.edu/boisvj/2009/06/08/only-lyon/